دانلود مقاله ISI انگلیسی شماره 19988
ترجمه فارسی عنوان مقاله

آیا ارزش نهادن به آندروژنی و زنانگی منجر به یک امتیاز زن می شود؟ ارتباط بین نقش جنسیت، رهبری تحول گرا و شناسایی

عنوان انگلیسی
Does valuing androgyny and femininity lead to a female advantage? The relationship between gender-role, transformational leadership and identification
کد مقاله سال انتشار تعداد صفحات مقاله انگلیسی
19988 2012 21 صفحه PDF
منبع

Publisher : Elsevier - Science Direct (الزویر - ساینس دایرکت)

Journal : The Leadership Quarterly, Volume 23, Issue 3, June 2012, Pages 620–640

ترجمه کلمات کلیدی
- آندروژنی - هویت جنسیتی - نقش - رهبری تحولی - شناسایی شخصی - جنسیت - مدیریت
کلمات کلیدی انگلیسی
Androgyny,Gender-role identity,Transformational leadership,Personal identification,Gender,Management
پیش نمایش مقاله
پیش نمایش مقاله  آیا ارزش نهادن به آندروژنی و زنانگی منجر به یک امتیاز زن می شود؟ ارتباط بین نقش جنسیت، رهبری تحول گرا و شناسایی

چکیده انگلیسی

The notion of ‘think manager–think male’ has been demonstrated in many studies. The current study examines whether leaders are perceived as more effective when they have ‘feminine’, ‘masculine’ or ‘androgynous’ characteristics, and how this relates to the leader's and followers' sex. Using carefully matched samples of 930 employees of 76 bank managers, we studied the relationship between managers' gender-role identity (perceived ‘femininity’, ‘masculinity’ and ‘androgyny’) and how this relates to leadership effectiveness in terms of transformational leadership and personal identification with the leader. Our findings show that among both male and female leaders, ‘androgyny’ was more strongly related to transformational leadership and followers' identification than ‘non-androgyny’, and that leaders' ‘femininity’ was more strongly related to leadership effectiveness than ‘masculinity’. Furthermore, the results show that women paid a higher penalty for not being perceived as ‘androgynous’ (mixing ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’), in comparison to men with regard to personal identification. When examining same- versus cross-sex relationships, we found that ‘non-androgynous’ male managers were rated higher by their male employees than by their female employees. Our findings suggest that women and men who are interested in being perceived as effective leaders may be well advised to blend ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ behaviors, and even more so when they are in situations of non-congruency (i.e., women in leadership roles and leading in cross-sex relationships). We discuss the implications of these findings for both theory and practice.

مقدمه انگلیسی

In the past and in some respects even today, the ideal manager3 was perceived as possessing stereotypic ‘masculine’4 qualities such as self-confidence, independence, assertiveness, dominance and rationality (Schein, 1973). Research has indicated that across different organizations and countries the “good” or successful manager was described in masculine terms by both women and men (e.g., Powell and Butterfield, 1979, Schein, 2007 and Schein et al., 1996), as echoed in Schein et al.'s (1996) phrase “think manager–think male”. A recent meta analysis of 69 studies, that examined the extent to which stereotypes of leaders are culturally ‘masculine’, confirmed the overall ‘masculinity’ of leader's stereotypes (Koenig, Eagly, Mitchell, & Ristikari, 2011). Traditional stereotypic ‘feminine’ characteristics were considered irrelevant or even antithetical to success in the management role. These perceptions are argued to disadvantage women in management positions, forcing them to cope with the perceived incongruity between their ‘leader role’ and their ‘gender role’ (Eagly and Karau, 2002 and Powell and Graves, 2003). More recently, a growing trend in the literature asserts that management is becoming more ‘feminine’, in the sense that qualities which have traditionally been associated with women are now being associated with effective organizational management (e.g., Benveniste, 1993, Duehr and Bono, 2006, Fondas, 1997 and McDowell, 1997). Changes in organizations' economic, demographic, technological and cultural environments have given voice to this alternative perspective suggesting that traditional management styles may be less effective. Many authors (e.g. Book, 2000, Eagly and Carli, 2003a, Fletcher, 2004, Fondas, 1997 and Lipman-Blumen, 1996) have argued that in order to succeed in today's frequently changing, less hierarchical and more flexible organizations, managers have to engage in collaboration, be cooperative, demonstrate openness, interpersonal sensitivity and empathy, and invest efforts in the development of their employees. This suggests that effective and influential leadership may not be characterized by mainly stereotypic ‘masculine’ characteristics, but rather may call for ‘androgyny’, a blending of culturally ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ types of behaviors that can give both female and male managers more flexibility and advantage as leaders (Hackman et al., 1992, Hall et al., 1998 and Koenig et al., 2011). A meta-analytical study reports evidence for increasing ‘androgyny’ of the leader stereotype over the last four decades (Koeing et al., 2011). A shift in an ‘androgynous’ direction may also ease women's role incongruity problem in relation to leadership roles and enable them to better cope with the challenge of the double bind paradox: the conflicting expectations that women leaders should behave in an agentic manner (e.g., assertive, competitive) to fulfill the leader role, but at the same time in a communal manner (e.g., compassionate, caring) to fulfill the female gender role (Eagly and Carli, 2007, Kark, 2004 and Kark and Eagly, 2010). One approach to study the effectiveness of female and male leaders is by examining their leadership styles (Kark & Eagly, 2010). Meta-analyses have shown that there is a positive relationship between transformational leadership style and a leader's effectiveness (e.g., Judge & Piccolo, 2004). Leadership effectiveness can also be assessed in terms of the relational logic of effectiveness (Fletcher, 2004 and Kark, 2011). According to this perspective, the level of emotional and relational attachment of the followers to the leader is used as an indicator of leaders' effectiveness. In this study we focus on personal identification of the followers with the leader, which may play an important role in leaders' ability to influence followers and be effective (e.g., Kark et al., 2003 and Yaffe and Kark, 2011). The aim of this study is three-fold. First, we attempt to extend existing knowledge on gender and leadership by studying the ways leaders' perceived gender-role identity (‘femininity’, ‘masculinity’ or ‘androgyny’) relates to leadership effectiveness as evidenced in transformational leadership style and personal identification with the leader. We focus on transformational leadership, since it represents a behavioral aspect of leadership effectiveness, and on followers' identification with the leader, which reveals the emotional–relational aspects of leadership effectiveness. The focus on these two different modes of effectiveness enables a better understanding of the complex relationships between leadership, sex and gender-role. Second, we seek to broaden the focus of previous investigations by examining not only the effects of manager's sex and gender-role identity on leadership effectiveness, but to also direct our attention to subordinates' sex and the dynamics that develop in same-sex versus cross-sex relationships. Focusing on personal identification with the leader in this context is valuable for two reasons. First, due to the importance of sex and gender for self-definition (e.g., Kohlberg, 1966 and Minsky, 1996), identification with the manager is likely to be affected by manager's sex and gender-role and their interaction with followers' sex. Second, although identification with the leader has been a central premise of leadership theories and has been suggested to be an important component in the ability of leaders to influence followers, there are only a few field studies that have directly examined the concept of personal identification with leaders, and none, to our knowledge, that examine the interplay between sex, gender-role and personal identification with leaders. Third, most of the studies on gender stereotypes and the effect of gender-role in leadership positions are conducted in settings that are far removed from the actual context in which leadership takes place (e.g., laboratories and classrooms) using imaginary people as targets. Therefore, the findings of these studies may reflect gender stereotyping that occurs primarily in the absence of specific information about an individual and in the absence of a relationship with that individual. Thus, studies using this approach inevitably omit essential features of real leadership, the followers, and the relationships between them. This can result in various biases. For example, it can lead to an over-representation of presumed gender biases in situations when individuals have limited information about the leaders (e.g., in the process of hiring; Duehr and Bono, 2006 and Vecchio, 2002). By contrast, our goal was to test the influence of the perceived gender-role of female and male managers, and the ways by which this is linked to leadership effectiveness in an actual organizational context in which managers interact on a daily basis with employees of both sexes. Furthermore, many of the findings of previous studies on sex differences in leadership styles can be partially attributed to other variables that tend to co-vary with the manager's sex, such as differences in management roles, organizational level or type of organization (Yukl, 2006). Therefore, in the present study we used a strict matching procedure to control for confounding effects and ensure that the female and male managers studied were indeed comparable. Thus, in the current research we hope to contribute to the study of the gender and leadership by further exploring the ways in which ‘androgyny’, ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ are related to certain aspects of leadership effectiveness and to further explore whether the value ascribed to gender-role identity of ‘androgyny’ and ‘femininity’ can be useful to men managers, as well as help women overcome the double bind paradox and give women an advantage or at least allow them to overcome dis-advantage.

نتیجه گیری انگلیسی

5. Discussion This study examined the relationship between gender-roles and leadership effectiveness as manifested in transformational leadership style and personal identification with the leader. Specifically, it explored whether the value of ‘androgyny’ and ‘femininity’ can help women overcome the double bind and give women an advantage or at least allow them to overcome disadvantages. In general, the findings show that the effectiveness of both men and women leaders is related to their ability to draw on both culturally ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ characteristics. However, if there is a need to choose between using ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ characteristics, the ‘feminine’ fares somewhat better for both men and women in terms of effectiveness in work organizations, at least with regard to the outcomes we studied (i.e., leadership style and personal identification). Behaving in an ‘androgynous’ manner or drawing mainly on ‘feminine’-communal characteristics may enable women to resolve the double bind paradox and derive an advantage. Our findings also show that both men and women managers are rated as higher on the continuous ‘masculinity’ measure than on the continuous ‘femininity’ measure, but an examination of the gender-typed categories depicts a fairly equal distribution across the four types, with managers most likely to be rated as ‘androgynous’ (28.4%). Based on mean differences, as well as based on the gender-typed categories, women are perceived as higher on agentic-‘masculine’ behaviors than their counterparts. However, women were also more likely to be rated as ‘androgynous’ than men (34.8% versus 22.2%). Thus women in this sample do not derive an advantage from the value attached to communal as compared to agentic characteristics. Furthermore, in line with the congruency theory we find some support for the claim that when women are not ‘androgynous’ they pay a higher penalty than men, as employees are less likely to identify with them, but not less likely to rate them as transformational leaders. Finally, in other situations of non-congruency—such as the case of cross- and same-sex dyads, we find that when men manage men there is more tolerance when agentic and communal characteristics are not combined. Thus, both women and men benefit from behaving in an ‘androgynous’ manner; however when women are not perceived as ‘androgynous’ they are disadvantaged in comparison to men. 5.1. Gender-role and leadership effectiveness (transformational leadership and identification) Our findings suggest that both culturally ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ characteristics contribute to higher ratings of transformational leadership. Using the categories of gender-types we found as expected that ‘androgynous’ managers had the highest ratings on transformational leadership in comparison to all ‘non-androgynous’ gender-type categories. When using the continuous measurement of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ a similar pattern emerged showing significant effects for both components in their relationship to transformational leadership. Thus, leaders who are perceived as highly ‘feminine’ and highly ‘masculine’ score higher on transformational leadership. Furthermore, managers who are perceived as having more communal characteristics than agentic characteristics have an advantage when transformational leadership style is considered in comparison to managers who are perceived as more agentic. Lastly, agentic managers have an advantage only in relation to managers who were rated low on both characteristics (i.e., ‘undifferentiated’). It is important to note that although we did not formulate direct hypotheses relating to the avoidant components of leadership (i.e., management-by-exception passive and laissez-faire), the findings show that both male and female leaders who were ‘non-androgynous’ (mostly those characterized by the ‘undifferentiated’ or ‘masculine’ category) rated high on avoidant leadership style. This leadership style has been found to be highly ineffective (Judge & Piccolo, 2004). The findings on the advantages of ‘androgyny’ were further strengthened by the data on the relationship between leader's gender-role identity and identification with managers. Characteristics that are stereotypically viewed as ‘feminine’ and those that are stereotypically viewed as ‘masculine’ contributed to subordinates’ identification with the manager. Managers who were gender-typed as ‘androgynous’ received higher ratings on personal identification than all ‘non-androgynous’ managers. Thus in order for female and male managers to elicit identification among their subordinates, they need to exhibit both ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ attributes. These findings lend support to previous findings indicating that androgyny is associated with leadership effectiveness (Cann & Siegfried, 1990), flexibility (Bem, 1975 and Vonk and Ashmore, 1993), better adjustment to managerial roles (Korabik & Ayman, 1989) and leader emergence (Kent & Moss, 1994). Similar to the findings regarding transformational leadership, we found that stereotypic communal-‘feminine’ attributes were more strongly related to subordinates' personal identification than stereotypic agentic-‘masculine’ attributes. To the extent that identification mediates other leadership effects (Bass, 1998, Conger and Kanungo, 1998, Kark and Shamir, 2002, Kark et al., 2003 and Shamir et al., 1998), this finding suggests that both female and male leaders who exhibit stereotypic communal attributes (e.g., softness, sensitivity, empathy and affection) are likely to benefit more than those who display agentic attributes (e.g., self-confidence, power, determination, and independence). Since we were careful methodologically to ensure that the ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ characteristics examined had the same social desirability, the greater importance of the ‘feminine’ characteristics cannot be explained by higher social desirability. Rather, the findings suggest that managers who display communal qualities may contribute to the development of close and significant interpersonal relationships with their subordinates, and may be seen as contributing to the development of their subordinates, and thus increase subordinates' identification with them. However, our results suggest that combining both the agentic and communal characteristics is most effective9. Recently, the theory and practice of leadership and management have undergone a noticeable change. New models of leadership have emerged that acknowledge the importance of the relationship between the leader and follower. These theories contend that leadership effectiveness in knowledge-based environments depends on a less individualistic and commanding leadership and draw more on ‘post-heroic’ leadership, highlighting the relational concept of leadership that focuses on dynamic, interactive processes of influence and collaborative learning (Fletcher, 2004, Lipman-Blumen, 1996, Pearce and Conger, 2003 and Uhl-Bien, 2006). In view of this change our findings suggest that managers who are able to behave in a relational manner (show sensitivity, support and empathy), as well as combine this with a more agentic stance, are likely to be more adaptive and successful in modern organizations. 5.2. Manager's sex, gender-role and leadership effectiveness As expected, we found that managers drawing on a combination of both agentic and communal characteristics are likely to have an advantage. Only 28.4% of the managers fit the category of ‘androgynous’. Furthermore, female managers were more likely to be rated ‘androgynous’ than male managers (34.8% versus 22.2%). The ability of ‘androgynous’ women to draw on stereotypical ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ attributes may help them fulfill both their gender-role and their leader role and can enable them to overcome the double bind phenomenon (Koenig et al., 2011). Given the relationship between leadership effectiveness (i.e., transformational leadership style and personal identification) and the ‘androgynous’ style of leaders, the relatively ‘androgynous’ behavioral repertoire that was common among women leaders should facilitate their success in leader roles. Thus, paradoxically, the pressures of conflicting expectations toward women leaders (the double bind) may facilitate the display of a more adaptive and effective mix of gender role characteristics among women managers. This finding suggests that women who have been promoted to a managerial role in a male dominant context (only 10% of the managers in the bank we studied were women) are those who have integrated both communal and agentic characteristics. It is possible that more ‘androgynous’ women are selected and promoted for leadership roles in comparison to men. Alternatively, given that female managers are in the minority, there is a possibility that the women leaders need to be of higher caliber than the typical male manager to be noticed in the organization and assigned managerial responsibility.10 With regard to male mangers, although our findings show that they tend to be less represented in the ‘androgyny’ category they are also likely to benefit from combining agentic and communal behaviors. Two recent field studies in organizations also support this claim by showing that men who were encouraged to add ‘feminine’ characteristics to their ‘masculine’ style, even in ‘masculine’ environments, had better outcomes in terms of leadership effectiveness, safety behaviors, team cooperation and fostering a more inclusive environment for women (Ely and Meyerson, 2008 and Gartzia, 2011). Furthermore, if managers make use of only communal or agentic attributes, our findings suggest that both men and women leaders can benefit more from displaying the communal characteristics. However, as expected, in our sample the managers (male and female) were perceived as more highly characterized by ‘masculine’ attributes than ‘feminine’ attributes when using the continuous measure. Using the gender-role categories, even managers who were categorized as ‘androgynous’ were rated more highly on ‘masculinity’ than on ‘femininity’. This may imply that in spite of the advantage of communal behaviors, agentic behaviors are more prevalent among managers and are still perceived as more prominent and normative among managers in business organizations. It is of interest to note that in our sample men were more likely than women to be gender-typed as ‘feminine’ (30.4% versus 20.1%). Moreover, although our findings suggest that the display of behaviors that are stereotypically seen as ‘feminine’ could lead to higher levels of perceived effectiveness in terms of leadership style and identification, the women managers in our sample were not rated by their employees as more ‘feminine’ than the men managers in the gender-typed categories (female: 20.1%, male: 30.4%; mean sex differences were not significant). Furthermore, on the continuous measure women were rated as significantly more ‘masculine’ than their counterparts, by both male and female employees (female: 24.1%, M = 5.67, SD = 1.34, male: 18.4%, M = 5.21, SD = 1.06). To achieve managerial positions the women managers may have had to compensate for their stereotypic gender expectations by demonstrating stereotypic ‘masculine’ qualities to a greater extent than their male counterparts. Another more likely possibility is that they did not demonstrate agentic qualities more than male managers, but the discrepancy between employees' expectations from them as women and their managerial role behavior made their ‘masculine’ attributes more salient, thus heightening their perception as ‘masculine’. The finding that women are perceived as more masculine than men is of importance, since previous studies have demonstrated that people may see women who demonstrate leadership ability as insufficiently ‘feminine’ or as ‘too masculine’ (Eagly and Carli, 2003a and Fiske and Stevens, 1993). As a result of the discrepancy between the female gender-role and the leadership role, female leaders often get less favorable reactions than male leaders for ‘male’-stereotypic forms of behavior and leadership (Eagly et al., 1992). Women encounter a greater amount of dislike and rejection than men for showing dominance and assertiveness, expressing disagreement, or being self-promoting (e.g., Carli, 2001 and Rudman, 1998). This dynamic has been found to be more prominent in male-dominated environments (Eagly and Carli, 2003a and McPherson et al., 2001). Thus, our findings suggest that women leaders who are not perceived as tempering ‘femininity’ with ‘masculinity’ may risk being perceived as more ‘masculine’, which in turn may contribute to their perception as less effective in their leadership. This may explain why in our study we find that overall the more common gender-type for women leaders is ‘androgyny’. These results also lend some support to our claim that while the benefits of ‘androgyny’ might be similar for men and women (although women tend to benefit to a limited extent more from ‘androgyny’ than men), the penalty for not being perceived as ‘androgynous’ is greater for women than for men. The results show that women pay a higher penalty for not being perceived as ‘androgynous’ in comparison to men with regard to personal identification. The ratings of women's personal identification were in particular lower in comparison to ‘non-androgynous’ men when the women mangers were perceived as ‘masculine’. Moreover, results of regression analyses with continuous measure of ‘femininity’ show that women pay a higher penalty for being perceived as less ‘feminine’ in comparison to men (see Fig. 1 and Fig. 2). Thus, in line with congruency theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002), in situations of non-congruency (when women are perceived as merely ‘masculine’) followers may resist identifying with them since they lack communion. This suggests that when women are ‘androgynous’ they are likely to have the same advantage or even more advantage than men. However when they are not flexible enough to use both agentic and communal behaviors they are likely to be disadvantaged in comparison to men. Men managers, on the other hand, may have more credibility as leaders, which afford them the privilege of a more lenient evaluation. This allows them to display a more limited and less flexible set of behaviors (only ‘masculine’, ‘feminine’ and ‘undifferentiated’) and still be perceived as more effective and possibly worthy leaders. 5.3. Employee's sex and leadership effectiveness Male employees perceived male managers as more ‘feminine’ than female employees perceived them, and female employees perceived female managers as more ‘masculine’ than male employees perceived them. In other words, gender perceptions in same-sex relations were less stereotypic than in cross-sex relations. Apparently, employees were able to identify a wider range of attributes and behaviors in managers of the same-sex than in managers of the opposite sex. This is not surprising, as people often have less stereotypic views of their in-group members than of their out-group members. It is also possible, however, that this finding does not reflect a perception bias, but that due to more open and less restricted interactions between members of same-sex dyads (e.g., Ragins, 1997), the actual behavior of managers in such dyads is less stereotypical and displays a wider range of attributes and behaviors. Interestingly, in our study only male managers in cross-sex relationships were penalized more for not blending ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ behaviors (‘androgyny’) in comparison to same-sex relationship. As the interaction shows, ‘non-androgynous’ male managers were rated higher on transformational leadership as well as on personal identification by their male employees than by their female employees (see Fig. 3 and Fig. 4). However, for female managers no significant difference was found between the way male followers evaluated their female managers in comparison to their female followers. In both cases (same-sex and cross-sex relationships) the women managers were rated low when they were not perceived as ‘androgynous’. Thus, for a female manager, the follower's sex was irrelevant. If she could not manifest both agentic and communal aspects of the gender-roles, she was given lower ratings on transformational leadership and personal identification by both female and male followers. However, male employees emerged as more tolerant towards their male managers. This suggests that male managers who cannot blend agentic and communion characteristics can “get by” when evaluated by same-sex male employees. In contrast, to lead effectively and elicit personal identification in a more complex situation in which they have to interact in cross-sex dyads with their female employees, they need to be more flexible and resourceful in mixing both the ‘masculine’ and the ‘feminine’. It is also important to note that among ‘androgynous’ managers, their ratings of transformational style and personal identification were similar regardless of whether they were leading a same-sex or cross-sex follower. Thus, for example, male employees had no more difficultly identifying with a female manager than female employees when the female manager was ‘androgynous’. Thus overall, our results were mostly replicated for both components of leadership effectiveness (i.e., transformational leadership and personal identification). The affirmation for our hypotheses from two different effects lends increased support to the hypotheses tested in this study. However, the results for personal identification with the leader provided greater confirmation for our hypotheses than the results for transformational leadership. This suggests that different types of leadership effectiveness may be more or less attuned to managers' agentic and communal characteristics. In our study it is apparent that identification with the manager, which is evident when an individual's belief about a person (a leader) becomes self-referential or self-defining (Kark and Shamir, 2002 and Kark et al., 2003) and is a more emotional–relational type of effectiveness, is more sensitive and attuned to the ways in which male and female followers perceive their managers' gender-role identities. In conclusion, the results suggest that for women in masculine roles like the one examined in this study, the best strategy in cross- and same-sex situations is to mix ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ behaviors, as ‘androgynous’ individuals have a wider range of behaviors from which to draw and are more likely to choose them based on the requirements of the situation (Yoder, 2001). If women do not blend these somewhat conflicting characteristics they are likely to pay a higher price than men who do not blend them. 5.4. Limitations A number of limitations need to be mentioned. First, the study was carried out in an Israeli banking context. A bank is a traditional hierarchical, bureaucratic and male dominated organization (about 90% of the branch managers we studied were men). This obviously limits the generalizability of our findings to other cultures and other organizations. It would be worthwhile to test our hypotheses in other types of contexts, such as female dominated organizations. Future studies should also examine contextual moderators that can affect the findings such as whether the organization is in a stable situation or in a time of crisis, since recent studies have demonstrated that a crisis may give an advantage to women (the glass cliff phenomenon; Haslam and Ryan, 2008 and Ryan and Haslam, 2005) and there may be further benefits for managers' communion behaviors in crisis situations. Second, although one of the study's strengths is its careful matching procedure, one drawback of the careful selection to obtain a comparable sample of male and female leaders is that it does not allow for comparisons of leader stereotypes between levels of leadership within the organization. Future studies should attempt to study comparable samples of higher status leader positions, as these are more likely to be ‘masculine’, and thereby more likely to increase role incongruity for women (Vinkenburg et al., 2011). There are also several other limitations to this study. First, given that all our data were from self-report questionnaires, there is a possibility that common method variance inflated some of the reported associations. However, since our aim was mainly to compare women and men leaders, this may reduce the problem due to our interest in the difference between the groups and not in the mere relationships found. Second, the fact that we used cross-sectional, correlational data constrains our ability to make inferences regarding the causal nature of the findings. A longitudinal study would be beneficial for examining how gender-role identities are associated with effective leadership over time. Third, in the current study we centered on two specific measures of effective leadership (i.e., transformational leadership and personal identification). Research is needed to further explore other types of leadership effectiveness including objective measures of performance. Last, we did not gather demographic information (e.g., age and seniority) of the followers, since the bank branches sampled were small (an average of 14 employees), and such information would violate confidentiality. Thus, we could not control for followers' characteristics. Future studies should attempt to control for differences deriving from followers' characteristics. 5.5. Practical implications The findings of the current study suggest that both women and men can be more effective when they have the ability to combine agentic and communal behaviors in a flexible way. However, ‘androgyny’ may be more important for women managers, since men may get away with a ‘non-androgynous’ style and are not likely to pay such a high penalty as women when they do not display an ‘androgynous’ style. Furthermore, being able to display ‘androgyny’ is more crucial for men managers in cross-sex interactions, when they lead women. Male employees are likely to identify with male managers to some extent even if they are ‘non-androgynous’; however, women employees will be less likely to do so. We believe that leaders’ ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ attributes and behaviors are socially constructed and are not a fixed personality trait. Rather they are dynamic attributes that can be shaped, reshaped, and transformed in interactions with others, similarly to the process of the ongoing development of leadership identity (e.g., De Rue and Ashford, 2010 and Ibarra and Petriglieri, 2010). This suggests that organizations may benefit from training both men and women how to combine ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ attributes. However due to the lower representation of men among managers with an ‘androgynous’ style, this training may be more warranted for male managers. Positive outcomes of such training possibilities have been recently demonstrated to be effective (Gartzia, 2011). Thus to conclude, the value of ‘androgyny’ and to some extent the value of ‘femininity’, are likely to contribute to the success of both men and women managers. However, women are only likely to benefit provided they are perceived as ‘androgynous’ and more ‘feminine’. If they are not able to meet the dual expectation to temper ‘masculinity’ with ‘femininity’, they may risk disadvantage and prejudice.